mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Hmm, there sure is a lot of smoke around this. Buttt, as with anything, I'll wait to cast judgment. I'm sure your average Auburn fan thinks Rich was running an internment camp based on what the Free Press wrote.

Then again, maybe looking at what the average Auburn fans thinks isn't the best use of anyone's time, since I imagine it mostly involves pigs, hating Alabama, and more pigs.

Maybe this is the start of NCAA investigations, the Auburn program becomes the next USC/UNC, recruiting becomes even tougher for them, and recruits such as Kris Frost come to Michigan and become a defensive studs for 4 years.

The entire article is based on the quotes of a single anonymous source. Not saying Newton did or did not engage in any of the alleged cheating, but the integrity of a single source who wont go on record for the public to see is suspect. Was it a school official? The student who Newton did or did not cheat off him? Or some bro-ha who lived on Newton's floor at UF and got denied a friend request... Obviously this "source" has to have some knowledge of the situation...but if you're not going to stand behind your claims then you shouldnt open your mouth to begin with. Ugh sports journalism has become a stewing pile of shit. Thanks 24 hour news cycle.

On some level Thayer's trying to make a splash like Snyder and the Freep.

Yeah its called FERPA. But if the "source" is within the university then they're breaking the law anonymously or not... In order to come forward the "source" would have to break the law. The difference is allowing the source sling mud with or without consequences. Its just a lack of accountability.

...the U of F doing some damage control also. Right now their program does not look so good for letting the best player in the SEC leave. Let's be honest at Florida you have to do a whole lot to get kicked off the football team. Their fanbase wants an explanation, and through "sources" they are getting it. It makes the university justified in letting him leave, which in all likelyhood they would have never wanted. This is real ugly SEC stuff.

The info sounds very plausible -- it's likely a student or administrator who would have been on the committee that heard the case -- but I'm sure the leaker is in part motivated by explaining why Florida let him go.

Btw, on the original scandal, they reviewed his Dad's bank statements, but it's not clear that they reviewed his church's bank statements. When his dad was asked how his church got the money for a major renovation, he said "I'm not getting into that."

None of this means the Newtons are guilty, just that there's smoke out there.

"I call that Communist football. I'm so tired of it. Good, red-blooded Americans snap the ball, hand it to the guy and have a normal run game or pass game."

It depends on the source and the journalist. The public should always be skeptical of anonymous-source-based reports but some journalists are worthy of more trust than others (as posters to this board know all too well). There are legitimate reasons why a source doesn't want to be identified and it's up to the journalist and her editors to decide whether the source's information is legitimate, important enough and something that can't be obtained from an on-the-record source.

Well I've certainly heard the rumors, but I must say that I would be shocked, SHOCKED I tell you if it was true that a reputable institution like Auburn would ever admit a prospective student athlete who did not take his academics and amateur status seriously.

That source gives concrete examples of academic fraud, arrest and enrollment departure "timing". It sure looks as though it sucks to be Cam Newton right now. I don't think this is a witch hunt like the Freep perpetrated and will reserve judgement for now. It does not look good for Cam and Auburn right now.

A little background on some people that run storefront Churches. I work for a commerical real estate firm in Houston that owns several retail centers. In those retail centers we have some storefront Churches. Last year we had one of the churches raided by the IRS and state attorney general for tax fraud. In discussions with the legal folks I discovered that a large percentage of these types of Churches are merely fronts for tax evasion and tax fraud.

Cam's father runs 5 of these things and had one in bad shape last year that magically was able to procure funds to get back to code. Now in no way am I saying that Cam's dad is not a legit pastor and his establishments are crooked, but the possiblities are there.

This is not a good kid, the laptop story is real, the academic fraud stuff has dates etc.,

To me it seems like the SEC plays by the "Mutual Assured Destruction" playbook. Keep flinging poop till something sticks, plus it seems its Auburn turn for probation since Alabama had it last (text book scandal) in the state.

You do that, you go to the box, you know. Two minutes, by yourself, you know and you feel shame, you know. And then you get free.

If any fan base should be giving these guys every benefit of doubt it should be us don't you think? Not saying they're innocent but good God has everyone forgotten the Jihad we just went through compliments of our local media?

Cam already has a black mark with the laptop story. The decision to call your lawyer instead of telling the truth to the police does not sound like a kid worried about making correct decisions but only about a kid worried about making PR decisions. I'm sorry but the whole he was just a young kid blah blah. He had enough sense to call a legal rep before he decided to throw the laptop out the window into the trash.

The decision to call your lawyer instead of telling the truth to the police does not sound like a kid worried about making correct decisions but only about a kid worried about making PR decisions.

It doesn't seem like he is an innocent fellow, but I don't care what situation you are in, it is almost ALWAYS wiser to call your lawyer instead of talking to the police, now matter who innocent you actually are. That is just (un)common sense.

I'm not defending him. Hell, if I had to guess based on what i've read so far I think he's probably guilty as home-made sin. My point though wasn't that I thought he was innocent. My point was that of all the schools in America, we should be the last ones to rush to judgement based upon a media report. Local, national or international for that matter.

I"m simply asking for Michigan to behave in a manner that we all wanted the rest of the college football to do for us last year. Wait until all the facts are in before we condem the individuals who have been accused. Based on the speed of which new information is coming out it shouldn't be that long of a wait.

I'm not familiar with how accurate FoxSports' news on college football usually is (though I want to give them some benefit of the doubt since their NFL news is almost always spot on, from what I've seen), so I can't get completely behind an "anonymous source" story, especially since UM just finished washing off the mud from the Freep.

That having been said, though, the fact that this is a completely different issue from the "buy his enrollment" thing does start raising some questions, especially combined with the laptop thing that is an official strike against him. I did not care too much about the first mention of cheating (2nd paragraph) since it doesn't go into any degree of detail, so it could've been something like asking to copy a little busywork problem set that he'd forgotten to do. I'll admit that I got mixed up in something like that once when I was in college, and the department head basically said, "We know this happens, and it doesn't matter much, but we have to make a stink over the obvious cases to discourage it. Just don't do it again, okay?"

However, the second and third instances are much more serious, in my eyes. I don't know if they would have any impact on his eligibility at Auburn (I'm guessing they would not since they happened at another school), but if it does end up being true that he did those, it'll be a pretty ugly mark against him.

Again, I don't know if these charges, being at another school, would have any effect on his student-athlete status at Auburn, but it might make the Heisman voters hesitant to vote for him. They'll certainly invite him to the ceremony if he's eligible, but having just gone through the Reggie Bush scandal, they might prefer to pick a winner that doesn't have any tarnish on his character. You know, that Denard Robinson kid seems to be putting up hefty numbers, is nice as a sleeping kitten, and has been nothing but a sterling ambassador for his school....